Skrillex:
Recess:
Warners:
CD/Dwnld:
Out Now:
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
After a few years spent introducing teenage rebels to a unique fusion of strop-step, electro-rock and every ruddy squelch setting on his bewildering rig of machines, Californian outlaw of hardcore Skrillex has finally turned in his long-awaited debut-album. Appearing fairly suddenly online for streaming recently, Recess is an amalgam of all that has gone before, plus added bone-shattering bass and, yep, more cochlea-frightening squelches to scare your parents (or your kids).
Thing is, Skrillex is six years into his career and now has some catching up to do. After chalking up a number 1 with the EP Bangarang in 2011, the momentum in the UK hasn't waned a great deal, but music itself has moved on - and so have 'the kids'. Sort of. Mind you, Skrillex himself doesn't need to 'move on', just ramp up. And boy has he upped that ramp something chronic in places.
Recess is a blend of hard-hitting instrumentals and vocal-tracks (guests a-plenty, as you might have expected) with one eye on shock-value and the other on converting all of this soundscape into a stadium banker. Opener All Is Fair In Love And Brostep could almost be a parody of itself - aggressive cut-ups, potty-mouthed raps and every conceivable motif from every dance-genre of the past few decades gets rinsed thoroughly before dry-humping its dirty-ass self into oblivion.
Sadly Recess falters for the next few tracks. Or, depending on your allegiance to fist-in-the-air anthems, scores bullseyes for Benjamins/quids. The title-track sounds like one big stroke-off between who can shout the loudest, while the more agreeable and subtler Stranger recalls some of Breakage's or Photek's more recent tech-step experiments before taking a sinister sideways swagger into more squeak-ridden territory.
High-pitched munchkins return on Try It Out on what is essentially a remake of the opening track All Is Fair and skittish scat-fest Coast Is Clear fails to light my fire on all levels. And if Fatboy Slim opted to make a Skrillex homage, he'd probably deliver the bonkers and cartoon-like Dirty Vibe.
Suddenly, just at the point of mentally throwing Recess into the dumper, Ragga Bomb drops its mucky riddims to the floor and ejaculates a sticky synthtastic mess all over the place. Now this is far more like it - any track with junglist references and the obligatory 'murdah-da-dah' sample deserves to be saved, even if it does go a bit Pendulum at the end. Doompy Poomp looks like an Aphex Twin title but transcends into an extended interlude that fuses Hanna Barbera with Kraftwerk, I kid you not.
A playful respite from what was fast becoming a one-dimensional first-half cacophony, we return to 'normal' for the rest of the album. Fuck That is just plain silly, the decent closer Fire Away is all pleading lonerisms ("fu-fu-fuck this place we call home") but DJ Ease My Mind sounds like a mobilephone-waving anthem of a generation - one part sadface, two parts screwface, I smell a huge hit.
Recess turns out to be slightly more than the sum of its parts after a few listens but by the time the second-half veers into earshot, you may have already chosen the less painful option to road-drill your own eyeballs to a nearby wall. Which would probably sound more like a Skrillex record than this one. Possibly. Love the sleeve-art though.
Recess:
Warners:
CD/Dwnld:
Out Now:
★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Thing is, Skrillex is six years into his career and now has some catching up to do. After chalking up a number 1 with the EP Bangarang in 2011, the momentum in the UK hasn't waned a great deal, but music itself has moved on - and so have 'the kids'. Sort of. Mind you, Skrillex himself doesn't need to 'move on', just ramp up. And boy has he upped that ramp something chronic in places.
Recess is a blend of hard-hitting instrumentals and vocal-tracks (guests a-plenty, as you might have expected) with one eye on shock-value and the other on converting all of this soundscape into a stadium banker. Opener All Is Fair In Love And Brostep could almost be a parody of itself - aggressive cut-ups, potty-mouthed raps and every conceivable motif from every dance-genre of the past few decades gets rinsed thoroughly before dry-humping its dirty-ass self into oblivion.
Sadly Recess falters for the next few tracks. Or, depending on your allegiance to fist-in-the-air anthems, scores bullseyes for Benjamins/quids. The title-track sounds like one big stroke-off between who can shout the loudest, while the more agreeable and subtler Stranger recalls some of Breakage's or Photek's more recent tech-step experiments before taking a sinister sideways swagger into more squeak-ridden territory.
High-pitched munchkins return on Try It Out on what is essentially a remake of the opening track All Is Fair and skittish scat-fest Coast Is Clear fails to light my fire on all levels. And if Fatboy Slim opted to make a Skrillex homage, he'd probably deliver the bonkers and cartoon-like Dirty Vibe.
Suddenly, just at the point of mentally throwing Recess into the dumper, Ragga Bomb drops its mucky riddims to the floor and ejaculates a sticky synthtastic mess all over the place. Now this is far more like it - any track with junglist references and the obligatory 'murdah-da-dah' sample deserves to be saved, even if it does go a bit Pendulum at the end. Doompy Poomp looks like an Aphex Twin title but transcends into an extended interlude that fuses Hanna Barbera with Kraftwerk, I kid you not.
A playful respite from what was fast becoming a one-dimensional first-half cacophony, we return to 'normal' for the rest of the album. Fuck That is just plain silly, the decent closer Fire Away is all pleading lonerisms ("fu-fu-fuck this place we call home") but DJ Ease My Mind sounds like a mobilephone-waving anthem of a generation - one part sadface, two parts screwface, I smell a huge hit.
Recess turns out to be slightly more than the sum of its parts after a few listens but by the time the second-half veers into earshot, you may have already chosen the less painful option to road-drill your own eyeballs to a nearby wall. Which would probably sound more like a Skrillex record than this one. Possibly. Love the sleeve-art though.